{"id":11193,"date":"2010-09-16T01:57:42","date_gmt":"2010-09-16T08:57:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=11193"},"modified":"2010-09-16T01:57:42","modified_gmt":"2010-09-16T08:57:42","slug":"what-makes-a-family","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=11193","title":{"rendered":"What Makes A Family"},"content":{"rendered":"

[This is another of my guest posts at “Family Scholars Blog<\/a>.” It is also crossposted on “Alas” and on “TADA.”]<\/em><\/p>\n

In her most recent post<\/a>, Amy wondered what study (or studies?) a radio report referred to. There’s been one study in the news this week which certainly sounds like it fits the bill. For the sake of discussion, here’s some descriptions of the study:<\/p>\n

From yesterday’s New York Times<\/a><\/em>:<\/p>\n

A majority of Americans now say their definition of family includes same-sex couples with children, as well as married gay and lesbian couples.<\/p>\n

At the same time, most Americans do not consider unmarried cohabiting couples, either heterosexual or same-sex, to be a family \u2014 unless they have children.<\/p>\n

The findings \u2014 part of a survey conducted this year as well as in 2003 and 2006 by Brian Powell, a sociology professor at Indiana University, Bloomington \u2014 are reported in a new book, “Counted Out: Same-Sex Relations and Americans\u2019 Definitions of Family<\/a>,” to be published on Wednesday by the Russell Sage Foundation.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Russell Sage Foundation’s website<\/a> provides a little more detail:<\/p>\n

The book reports on and analyzes the results of the authors\u2019 Constructing the Family Surveys (2003 and 2006), which asked more than 1,500 people to explain their stances on a broad range of issues, including gay marriage and adoption, single parenthood, the influence of biological and social factors in child development, religious ideology, and the legal rights of unmarried partners. Not surprisingly, the authors find that the standard bearer for public conceptions of family continues to be a married, heterosexual couple with children. More than half of Americans also consider same-sex couples with children as family, and from 2003 to 2006 the percentages of those who believe so increased significantly\u2014up 6 percent for lesbian couples and 5 percent for gay couples. The presence of children in any living arrangement meets with a notable degree of public approval. Less than 30 percent of Americans view heterosexual cohabitating couples without children as family, while similar couples with children count as family for nearly 80 percent. Counted Out<\/i> shows that for most Americans, however, the boundaries around what they define as family are becoming more malleable with time.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And a couple more numbers, drawn from the AP article<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Between 2003 and 2010, three surveys conducted by Powell\u2019s team showed a significant shift toward counting same-sex couples with children as family \u2013 from 54 percent of respondents in 2003 to 68 percent in 2010. […] The surveys were conducted by telephone, among a random selection of households, and the characteristics of the samples were compared with census data to verify that they were representative. There were 712 interviews in 2003, 815 in 2006 and 830 this year.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Finally, I’d be remiss if I didn’t quote the end of the Times <\/em>article, which quoted none other than a certain David Blankenhorn, who I believe has occasionally been sighted around these parts:<\/p>\n

David Blankenhorn, president of the Institute for American Values, a marriage research and advocacy group, said he was not surprised by the findings. “I like the standard definition of family: two or more persons related by blood, marriage or adoption,” Mr. Blankenhorn said. “Keeps it simple and coherent.”<\/p>\n

But, he added: “We live in groups, and we need each other. So it\u2019s always a good thing, isn\u2019t it, when any of us truly loves and is loved by another.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

David opposes same-sex marriage, but favors civil unions for same-sex couples. That brings up a question I’d like to ask David: Is a civil union-ized couple a family?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[This is another of my guest posts at “Family Scholars Blog.” It is also crossposted on “Alas” and on “TADA.”] In her most recent post, Amy wondered what study (or studies?) a radio report referred to. There’s been one study … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[135,116,112],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-crossposted-on-tada","category-families-structures-divorce-etc","category-same-sex-marriage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11193"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11193\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}